


You Used to Be Pirates!?!?!?

by lovelysandlonelys



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Assassination, BAMF Lance (Voltron), Kidnapping, Lance is a sweet boy, Space Pirates, but it's chill, competent lance, lance centric, seventh wheel lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:22:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21909658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelysandlonelys/pseuds/lovelysandlonelys
Summary: While on a political mission for the Voltron Alliance Lance is kidnapped by an undercover group of generals, who used to be pirates.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 152





	You Used to Be Pirates!?!?!?

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a long time ago and never finished it but now that I'm not as into the voltron fandom I figured why not! So here is this, if it feels rushed at the end it's because I lost interest but I am still pretty proud of this overall. Also I'm bad at tagging things so if you have suggestions for what else this should be tagged for hit me up.

Lance’s foot tapped underneath the table. His eyes darted around the conference room restlessly as Allura spoke to the Plonganaranians about joining the Voltron coalition, the Plogs, he was not going to think that whole entire word when he had much better things to think about, were the last planet in the Climorian system that they needed to create a wall of allies between Zarkon and the main entrance to the Milky Way.

A few weeks before they were due to come to the planet to secure the great planet wall, as the Paladins had been calling it, Allura had approached him and gently asked if he would be willing to accompany her to the meeting. The rest of the Paladins would be busy that week. Pidge was off with Matt ensuring help from the rebels for an upcoming mission. Keith was off with the blades again. Hunk was finally visiting Shay on a diplomatic mission to finalize the Balmerans place in the coalition. Even Coran was busy, looking for some parts at the swap moon near there while the castle was stationary. And Shiro, well Shiro has the week off because he needed a week off.

He knew all the facts, he was prepared, he was ready to make the Plogs entrance into the Voltron Alliance official. Those few weeks had given him ample time to research their customs. They had also given him enough time to comprehend how important this was, and how easy it would be to screw up. The Plogs were… an interesting species. They reminded Lance of the Victorian era, they wore fancy clothes and jewelry to show status and they had what was essentially a monarchy. Lance had to learn a series of bows that he had to make as he approached the ruler and hand gestures that he had to make to all of the lower royals and dukes. Allura did not have to learn any of this because technically she was on the same level as the ruler so all of the customs to show respect did not apply to her.

Anyway, he was maybe a little bit nervous. He was wearing his armor and Allura was wearing one of her traditional Altean dresses and everyone else was in armor, except for the ruler. Allura strode directly up to them, only bowing her head slightly as she sat at the other end of a large conference table made of dark wood. The other generals had sat down too, wearing something that vaguely resembled the shining metal of knights but was paneled like his own armor.

Lance then had to do the weird dance bow thing to approach the ruler and kiss their hand. He bowed deeply, placed his hands on the ground and lifted himself into a handstand, landed in a backbend, rose back to his full height and then walked the rest of the way to the ruler with his head bowed before taking their hand and kissing it. The ruler was ethereal, the Plogs were a humanoid species, but much like the Alteans their ears were pointed, they also had sharper teeth and skin tones that were a pastel rainbow. The biggest difference was in biology though, Plogs had, no blood? As far as Lance could tell from his research they didn’t have blood to circulate throughout their body and retain a normal temperature or whatever blood did, they had empty veins, full of air, and they were cold. When Lance's lips met the pale purple of the ruler’s hand it was as cold as ice.

And now he was here, seated to Allura’s right and tapping his feet and letting his gloved hands go wild against his arm braces. Allura was doing most of the talking, her and the ruler got along pretty well as far as Lance could tell and he hasn’t been allowed to say much. He’s beginning to think that Allura may have just brought him along so that he wouldn’t be alone in the castle without Coran there.

He lets his eyes wander around the room as Allura and the ruler work out the last details of the alliance, both of them have pleased smiles on their faces so Lance is sure that things have gone as planned. The walls are painted red, with darker red detailing, and a stained glass window frames the ruler from where they sit, their posture perfect and chin held high as they begin standing to excuse all of those at the meeting. Lance admires the reds and pinks in the glass before his eyes catch on something, a shadow crosses the window.

Lance springs into action before he can really think about what he’s doing. His hands grip the edge of the table and he launches his body up onto it, a gasp going throughout the room as he dares to rise before the queen does. He sprints across the table, vaguely aware of the rest of the guards rising to stop him before he tackles the ruler to the ground and a shot rings out across the room.

Adrenaline pumps through his veins, the ruler is like ice beneath him, but they are shaking, their dark eyes wide as he pushes himself up from their form to the shattered window. Galra soldiers stand there, one’s gun pointed directly at where the ruler had been sitting, the other three gathered loosely behind the leader, all wearing matching expressions of shock on their faces. Lance uses his forearms to get up, leaving the ruler on the ground and grabbing at his bayard.

“Get the Ruler and Queen Allura out of here!” he shouts, Forming his shield as the ruler struggles to get untangled from their long cape and rush out with their guards.

The Galra soldier who’s holding the gun snaps out of her shock and snarls, aiming another shot at the ruler, who’s halfway through the door. Lance, panicking, throws his bayard at the Galra, it transforms back into its default form halfway through but it does its job and knocks the Galra’s aim off, the shot going wide and splintering the wood that makes up the door frame.

Lance realizes a few things simultaneously. The first being that he is now, completely unarmed and under-armored as he left his helmet sitting underneath his chair, halfway across the room. The second being that all of the soldiers are now looking at him, with an odd desperation etched on their faces.

The Galra in front bares her teeth at Lance, and point’s her gun at him, jerking it toward the rest of her group when he remains frozen. “With us,” she grits out.

Lance looks behind him, at the empty room, and then at his bayard which is pressed firmly into the wooden floor by the Galra leader’s foot. Lance looks at his helmet under the chair, and then at the hole that's scorched into the leader’s chair, where their head had been. Lance sighs. He really doesn’t have any options that don’t involve getting shot.

“I guess,” he says dejectedly.

One of the Galra moves forward, and gestures for Lance to put his hands out. They still have their helmet on, so Lance can’t get a good read on them. He complies. The magnetic handcuffs snap closed and then his eyes slide closed when the Galra in front of him use their elbow to knock him in the side of the head.

***

And really, that was kind of uncalled for if you asked him. Sure, he probably would’ve been able to escape during the transport but still. That’s part of the taking-prisoners experience. Either way, he has a splitting headache when he wakes up and is immediately disoriented thanks to the pink-toned lights of the ship. After a few blinks to clear his vision he becomes aware of his surroundings a couple seconds later he remembers what happened to get him here.

He’s tied to a chair in the corner of a large room. It reminds him a bit of the mess hall in the Garrison, if the mess hall in the Garrison had been some kind of themed restaurant. The ceiling beams were draped in several peculiar banners, some he recognized as flags and others looked more like his mother’s favorite carpet. The large tables that spanned the room were similarly covered in fabric and pillows and personal belongings. It was very…. unmilitaristic.

In his experience, Galra ships were, first off, very purple and second off, efficient. He’d never seen anything resembling a couch in a Galra ship, but the benches of the tables had been turned into couches using a wide variety of different colored fabrics and pillows.

Lance was puzzling over this when the doors activated. He quickly snapped his eyes shut, looking out at the crew from under his lashes.

The leader walks through the door first. She’s the most Galra looking out of all of them. She has the purple skin and yellow eyes, but her features are more, rough? sharp? He can’t really describe it but it kinda reminds him of the Balmerans. She comes through and- in a way not unlike Keith- sets to pacing.

The other three settle in like this is a common occurrence. They are decidedly less Galra looking. One looks vaguely fish-like, with gills on either side of their neck, and bright teal spots speckled across the purple of their skin. Another is super duper tall, like hella tall, and has light red skin with the yellow eyes and rings of darker red and orange going up their arms and legs, which he can now see as they’ve taken off their armor, a muttered comment about breathing better coming out of their mouth, which is, worrying if anything. The last one is the least humanoid- Lance would say saytar but if a saytar was a crab- she has a human face, and upper torso, but then around the hips, her skin transitions into a hard purple exoskeleton with joints that vaguely remind him of a crab but are mostly just outside of his comprehension.

From his position in the chair, he can see that they've basically blocked all the exits. Which does not bode well for him. He keeps trying and failing to come up with a plan of escape because the Galra are a lot more interesting. The leader has been ranting on and off since she’s been in the room, stomping around and shouting. She keeps saying things like, “Zarkon is really gonna kill us now,” and “we can’t even assassinate one royal without getting in trouble” and “why did we take the Paladin? That seems stupid in hindsight, why did we do that?”.

The rest of the crew seems calmer. The fish person has their feet in a bucket of water and is conversing with the crab lady quietly enough that he can't hear them. The tall boy is doing pull-ups in the doorway and nodding along to the leader as she aggressively worries.

“Do you think we’ll get recognition for capturing a Paladin?” she asks the boy. “Because I think that might be our only saving grace at this point.”

The boy stops doing pull-ups and stares at her. “Riva,” he says slowly, “we’ve failed every single mission that Zarkon has assigned us.”

Riva, apparently, stops her stomp pacing and glares at him. “Yeah well, it's his own fault. He beamed our ship in and said, ‘wow you stole from me you must be pretty badass, join my army or all I’ll kill you blah blah’ like,” she throws her hands up, “how is that supposed to motivate us Galkd! We don’t have any nationalism for the empire, and he never formally trained us! He’s crazy-,” she trails off.

Galkd drops from where he was hanging in the doorway, the doors whooshing closed behind him, and walks over to her. “We knew we had to stop our shananagins one day Riva.” He wraps a long arm around her shoulders. “At least this way we know its coming.”

Lance visualizes a corkboard with different things they've said pinned up on it. He then visualizes a ship, that steals from people. Oh! Ohhhh that made a lot of sense. Just as he’s had this epiphany he hears Riva’s heavy footsteps approaching him. He shuts his eyes all the way. “They say humans are weak but I always thought that was just propaganda,” she kicks his foot, “but stars, this one’s been out for what? Five doobashes now? How hard’d you hit him, Galkd?”

“Not that hard,” says tall boy.

“He should be awake by now then, right? Unless he’s like dead or in a coma or something,” stays someone that isn’t the captain or the tall boy.

“Oh stars,” says Captain Riva, “did you kill him?! We’re gonna be in so much trouble.” Lance hears her boots scuff against the floor as she turns back toward him and promptly slaps him across the face.

“Fuck!” he says

“Oh,” says Riva.

“You used to be space pirates!” Lance yells, startling the fish person in the corner into spilling their bucket of water.

Galkd lets out a booming laugh from his place next to Riva. The crab lady raises her eyebrows. The fish person is trying to still the bucket so that more water comes out.

“You used to be space pirates,” Lance repeats, slightly abashed “and now your working for Zarkon?”

Captain Riva’s face contorts at the accusation in his voice. “Well, it’s not like we had a choice Paladin. He was going to kill my whole crew if we didn’t agree to his terms.”

The other soldiers nod along to this. The amusement on Galkd’s face slipping off as he toes at the floor. The fish person is now wiping up the spilled water with a towel with the crab lady’s help their motions slow. Lance feels a sudden spike of anger that he cannot contain.

“Ask me to be a part of your crew.” He demands.

“What?” Captain Riva glances at her compatriots. “I can’t do that? You’re our prisoner?”

Lance lets out a huff, “I’m just trying to prove a point.”

The fish person speaks up, curiosity in their eyes. “Join our crew blue Paladin?” Their words are lilting, with some kind of accent pulling the constants in the words longer than the vowels.

“Yes, of course, I will,” Lance says, a bubbly quality in his voice.

The crew stares at him while they wait for his point.

“You are not doing anything,” Galkd says slowly.

“My point exactly”, Lance replies “You don’t have to keep your promise to Zarkon, you’re talented people! You nearly assassinated the ruler of a planted, you kidnapped the blue paladin, you have very good interior design skills,” Lance lets himself trail off.

“Oh,” says Riva.

A smile pulls at Lance's face.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
